When afternoon classes are let out, the men’s basketball team heads towards Jadwin Gymnasium and Caden Pierce — 2023–24 Ivy League Player of the Year — heads another.
“At first, it felt really weird,” Pierce said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I’m in classes with [my teammates]. Class would end and they would go to Jadwin, and I’d go back to my room to kind of get my afternoon started.”
Pierce isn’t injured nor ineligible to play under NCAA regulations. Instead, he chose to step away from the Princeton team to finish his economics degree and preserve his final season of eligibility. This decision reflects a broader shift in college sports, where limited Name Image and Likeness (NIL) opportunities in the Ivy League have pushed top players to pause and reassess their options.
“I wanted to finish what I started here,” Pierce said. “Academics is really important to myself and my family as well, and I’ve built really strong and genuine relationships here. I could have transferred for the immediate basketball impact, but I really wanted to graduate from Princeton.”
Pierce announced his decision in early July. It came after a tumultuous 2024–25 season for Princeton men’s basketball that ended with standout guard Xaivian Lee transferring to the University of Florida, fellow rising senior Jack Scott transferring to Duke, and two assistant coaches being asked to not return.
The decision to let go of former Associate Head Coach Brett MacConnell, who was responsible for recruiting both Lee and Pierce, shocked Pierce.
“I didn’t see it coming,” Pierce said, acknowledging that he isn’t aware of everything that happens behind the scenes. “Within the span of a few days, everything happened.”
Pierce was forced to weigh his options. “Wow, this is a much different program now than what it was three days ago,” he shared. “All of the departures were significant.”
Pierce and Lee had considered transferring during the 2023–24 season, but both decided to run it back at Old Nassau for one more season. Pierce said that he largely followed Lee’s decision: “I was non-stop texting him because I knew he was on the fence with it.”
“We thought we had all the tools needed to have a really successful junior year and things didn’t necessarily go the way we wanted,” Pierce told the ‘Prince.’ Reflecting today, Pierce does not regret the decision to stay.
But this year’s season was different. “It didn’t feel like the right situation for me to use my last year of eligibility.”
“I’ve never taken a year off of basketball,” Pierce said. “It’s something that not many people have done, and so I was kind of wary of doing it.”
When the decision was made, he told Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 and his teammates one by one.
“It wouldn’t be fair to let it linger,” he said. The conversations were “super emotional.”
Henderson ’98 did not respond to repeated requests for comment from the ‘Prince’ regarding Pierce’s decision.
“This program has given me so much,” he said. “This decision was nothing against Princeton … It was definitely a really tough phone call.”
Pierce is now a student like anyone else. He doesn’t use the varsity facilities, and he structures his day around his academic schedule instead of an athletic one. He is what some on campus call a NARP — a non-athletic regular person.
“I assumed I was going to be completely shut off, which I fully understand and respect,” he said in reference to access to Jadwin Gym. “I did check in with [Coach Henderson] just to confirm that. And obviously that’s the case.”
He now wakes up before 7 a.m., lifting at the new Wilkinson Fitness Center in the Racquet & Recreation Fieldhouse before heading to morning classes.
“I go there because it’s really nice, it’s brand new,” Pierce said. “And there’s not that many people there, so I can kind of get away and do what I need to do over there.”
At first, the contrast with teammates was jarring. “It’s been an adjustment,” he said. “I’m incredibly thankful to them. They’ve accepted me, and they understand the decision I made, and they don’t hold anything against me … I can still be cool with them and not feel like a foreigner.”
Pierce said he is looking into joining local programs as a practice player to get organized practice opportunities. He noted that he is also trying to navigate NCAA eligibility rules.
Since the opening of the fall transfer portal on Oct. 1, Pierce has heard from over 20 schools.
“It’s been busy,” Pierce noted. “These are the schools you dream of going to when you’re in high school … Now that I’m having this experience, it’s a cool, full circle moment.”
While Pierce does not have a concrete timeline, he’s aiming at having a decision made by a soft deadline of the end of the calendar year.
For Pierce, the decision will be based on two primary factors: winning and development.
“I want to go to a program that’s going to continue to win a lot of games, potentially maybe win a national championship,” Pierce noted. “I [also] want to continue to go to a program that’s going to develop me and push me to be the best player I can be, because I want to keep playing basketball as long as I can, ideally at the NBA level.”
He added that his older brother, Justin Pierce, played overseas for four years and loved it, a path Pierce would consider.
The Pierce family is no stranger to the transfer portal and chasing professional opportunities. Justin Pierce transferred as a graduate student after three years at William & Mary, ultimately choosing North Carolina. His middle brother, Alec Pierce, had a stellar football career at Cincinnati University and now suits up for the Indianapolis Colts. Both of his parents played Division I sports at Northwestern.
Pierce is also recovering from a grade three ankle sprain suffered in a December 2024 game against Akron, where Pierce tore both ligaments on the outside of his ankle and one on the inside of his ankle. At the time, he didn’t know how long the recovery would take.
“I later found out that it was a two to three month recovery,” he said. “I’m a competitor, there’s no way I was going to let myself sit on the bench for essentially the remainder of the season … I felt like if I didn’t play, I would be letting the team down.”
Following the ankle injury, Pierce’s production took a hit as he managed the injury and pushed himself through the pain.
Once the season ended in mid-March, he shut things down, avoiding any live basketball until the beginning of June. Pierce noted that his ankle is now “feeling a lot better.”
Pierce played 3x3 for USA Basketball in multiple events throughout July and August, culminating in the U23 3x3 FIBA World Cup in September, where he led the USA in scoring. He won’t play organized basketball for the coming months.
Now that Pierce’s day-to-day revolves around class and individual training, he’s reminded often that he’s no longer technically an athlete.
“It happens often,” he said. “I’m more than happy to kind of talk through the situation. I understand it’s a weird and unique one, so I get that people have questions, and so I’m always happy to answer those.”
After all, few players in modern college basketball willingly step away at their peak.
Pierce’s decision also reflects a larger reckoning for the Ivy League. In the past two years, Harvard’s Malik Mack went to Georgetown and Chisom Okpara to Stanford, Yale’s Danny Wolf to Michigan, and Penn’s Tyler Perkins to Villanova — decisions all motivated by NIL opportunities.
“After [freshman year], it wasn’t even a thought to anybody on the team to transfer,” Pierce said. “The money and the compensation out there after my sophomore year was still not what it is today … This past year, it seems like the numbers skyrocketed, and now it’s complete madness.”
When asked whether the Ivy League should change its NIL policy and adopt collectives, Pierce said it’s not an easy decision.
“The easy answer is to say the Ivy League needs to adopt collectives to remain competitive,” he said. “But then again, that goes against what the Ivy League has stood for hundreds of years … It’s a loaded question.” That paradox now defines the Ivy League.
“College athletics nowadays is just so different, and so it’s just the reality of the situation,” Pierce said.
Hayk Yengibaryan is a head News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif. and typically covers breaking news and profiles. He can be reached at hy5161[at]princeton.edu.
Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.
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